STANTHORPE, QUEENSLAND

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A large and prosperous service town on the New England Highway near the NSW border, located in a rich, mixed farming area that includes vineyards and wineries, orchards and sheep and cattle grazing. The town holds the record for having experienced the coldest temperature on record in the Sunshine state -14.6 degrees Celsius.
Location: 223 km south west Brisbane via Warwick; 56 km north of Tenterfield; 811 m above sea level.
Origin of name: named by Augustus Charles Gregory (1819-1905), probably in 1872, creating an artificial word from Latin stannum = tin and English thorpe = town. It was formerly known as Quart Pot. Gregory, who was Governor-General until 1875, surveyed the mineral fields on the Severn River in 1872.
Brief history: explorer Allan Cunningham passed through the area in 1827. Stanthorpe was first settled thirty years later with the establishment of a coach station. It remained a lonely outpost until the discovery of tin on Quart Pot Creek in 1871. This brought a flood of miners and enabled the coach station to become a regular Cobb & Co. staging post. Within a short time, fruit growing was established by the many German settlers who moved into the area. The railway arrived in 1881. After World War I, land to the north of the town was subdivided as soldier settlements. During and after World War II, a considerable number of Italian POWs and migrants arrived swelled the local population.
Natural features: Girraween National Park (32 km south, Bald Rock Creek; Mt. Norman, the Eye of the Needle; Balancing Rock; Sphinx Rock; Turtle Rock, The Pyramids); Sundown National Park (Red Rock Falls; Mt. Lofty; Red Rock Gorge; Nundubbermere Falls; Severn River; Carpenter's Gully; Koina's Tanks (whirlpool eroded holes in the river); Rat's Castle; McAllisters Creek; Mt. Donaldson and Donaldson Creek Falls; Ooline Creek; Blue Gorge; Mt. Emily Creek; Gorge Creek); Gem Fossicking (for smoky quartz, topaz, zircon, garnet and the occasional sapphires, mostly around Spring Creek, Severnlea River and Quart Pot Creek. Permit required)
Built features: orchards, vineyards and wineries.
Heritage features: Post Office (1901); Stanthorpe and District Historical Society Museum (includes a shearer's hut (1842); the North Marylands School Residence (1891); Stanthorpe Shire Council Chambers; 'Ballandean Station' homestead (1840s); Girraween National Park Aboriginal sites (stone axe and grinding stone quarries, bora ring)